IT summons: BCCI officials submit IPL documents

April 23, 2010 21:01 IST

Responding to the Income Tax department's summons, the BCCI on Friday furnished before it complete details, including share holding pattern, player auction and bidding process of all eight original Indian Premier League franchisees.

"The BCCI has complied with the summons and submitted the documents relating to its original eight franchisees," an IT official closely involved in the exercise said.

IPL's Chief Executive Officer Sundar Raman represented the BCCI and some officials of the International Management Group, the event managing company which organises the Twenty20 extravaganza, were also present.

There was no official word on what transpired during the interaction between IPL officials and IT investigators.

The summons was issued on April 16 and the deadline was to expire today.

According to IT sources, the BCCI was asked to produce the bidding documents of all eight franchisees, details of ownership/shareholding of each franchise, names, addresses of individuals, entities owning the franchise and their contract with the IPL.

The Cricket Board was also required to furnish details of payments made by the franchisees to the BCCI/IPL since inception, payments made by the BCCI/IPL to the franchises since inception, the profit and loss account and the balance sheet of the IPL since inception with necessary annexure, the profit and loss account and the balance sheet of the BCCI with details of income from the IPL.

The treatment of income from the IPL in the BCCI books of accounts, financial transactions with money received from parties associated with the IPL and details of the auction of players of each team since inception and the condition of payments and the actual payments made were also required to be submitted.

The losing bidders on January 24, 2008 were DLF, who subsequently won the title rights, Deutsche Bank and Emerald Telecoms while late bids were received from Sahara India, which has now bid successfully for the new Pune franchise for $370 million, Future Group and ICICI Ventures. The IPL, on its part, contracted top 80 players for the first players' auction which was held in February, 2008.

The original idea was to have only eight overseas players per team which was increased to ten subsequently, out of which only four can make the playing eleven in every match.

The franchisees were to receive from the central pool 80 per cent of TV rights revenue for the first five years and 60 per cent from the sixth to tenth year.

They were also to receive 60 per cent from the central sponsorship revenues for the entire ten-year duration plus entitled to 100 per cent of local revenues like gate receipts, team sponsorships, hospitality and premium seating, franchise media platforms, match-day concessions and promotions etc.

Meanwhile, informed sources said that the expenses incurred by various IPL franchisees since its inception in 2008, especially for engaging cheer leaders and in hosting parties, could also be probed by the Income Tax authorities.

"Some of the franchisee owners were not connected with the game prior to the IPL and saw it purely from a business point of view. The IT exemptions are given to promotion of cricket activities only but expenses incurred in engaging cheerleaders and hosting after-match parties may not come under this ambit," they said.